The Education Ministry has the following wonderfully “potent” statement to make about the warped bullshit that’s in our textbooks:

“We are constantly looking at ways to revise,
reorder and update. Where there are problems
they are addressed, and will continue to be.”

What do these people eat for breakfast?

Hatred Springs From Texts of Pakistani Schools
——————————————————–

This is the title of a piece by Juliette Terzieff – a frightening account of how impressionable, young Pakistani minds are being warped by school textbooks. This is the sort of stuff that makes the “rest of the world” believe that Pakistan is a country populated by crazed terrorists.

My blood boils … So Fucking What? Dr. Eqbal Ahmed, Tariq Ali, WHAT does one do to make a difference? Times are tough, doing honest business in this country is next to impossible, getting from one day to the next in a mad city like Karachi saps the life-blood out of us … do we give up whatever we do to eke out a living and start developing civil society? How many battles do we fight? Angelina Jolie can afford to give up her Hollywood career and take up the case of land-mines – she doesn’t have to worry about where her next meal is coming from. How does an average middle-class citizen who gives a BIG SHIT about the downhill path we are on, do something to bring about meaningful change. I TRULY believe in the Power Of One but each time there’s a goddamn insane deadline, the “causes” shift to the back-burner. It’s impossible to sustain – unless one is in the “business”.

What is fundamentally wrong with this country? There are too few people who WANT change. Why are people so unwilling to come out on the streets and demand accountability? What will it take and how and when? As life gets tougher, even those of us who did come out on the streets, are getting “tireder and tireder”. Getting home at 2:00 a.m. every day doesn’t leave much time for giving a damn about the public school curriculum. However, it is IMPERATIVE to do something. But when?

If it wasn’t bad enough being at work on a Sunday, the rain has brashly bypassed the double-layer windows and gone straight to my power-block. Didn’t even realise until I got up and nearly went flying as a result of all the water at my feet. Bloody hell, don’t even know where the mops are. Have decided to pretend this is not happening and as a result, am in the loo with my Powerbook. As it’s very cold in the office, for once the heat generated by this sex-bomb (the G4 12″ laptop!) feels quite good.

ABSOLUT ESCAPE!

Am rediscovering the Doors – what a trip. Still feel sorry for poor Ray Manzarek – master keyboardist, always in the shadow of Mojo Risin …

Awake,
shake dreams from your hair my pretty child,
my sweet one.
Choose the day and
choose the sign of your day
The day’s divinity
First thing you see …

Last night, while I was crossing over into lalaland, my mother told me I looked 6 years old. When I was 6, my biggest problem was that I kept falling off my bicycle.

The architect of this building should be SHOT.

Watched “Inherit the Wind” last night – a Stanley Kramer production. Spencer Tracey and Gene Kelly had key roles – what fabulous acting and direction.

A dramatic rendition of a true story. Teacher gets jailed for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution and the descent of man in a hick town called Hillsboro, a.k.a. the buckle of the bible belt All “hell” breaks loose and what ensues is a gripping courtroom drama that pits an atheist defense lawyer against a gung-ho believer …

Guess it’s too dangerous to say what I believe and feel about issues of creation, religion and faith.

Read a lot of Peanuts yesterday. Schulz was truly special. Apart from being able to represent the gamut of human emotion with the simplest of strokes, his sensitivity was unsurpassed. For an adult to be able to gauge the reactions of children in scores of situations is just [here comes the hyperbole] AWESOME!!!!

My all time favourite is “Will You Share My C?”

Formal education based on the factory model causes this!

YaY!!!!!!!!! The blasted cache was coming off the server. Trust the techies to never listen. Apologies to Apple/Safari for being nasty. “Should have known better … ”

Watched an episode of the Practise a couple of days ago … the jury verdict was really unbelievable. Must check to see how many such cases have actually taken place … the foreman got up and announced that the jury was disgusted with the prosecution, the defense and the judge as no one really gave a damn about the case. They claimed no evidence had been provided in order for them to reach a verdict and that the entire debacle was a slap in the face of the justice system. The judge was furious by this time and said that if the foreman did not immediately either stop jabbering or pronounce a verdict, the jury would be held in contempt. The foreman took off his glasses and calmly announced that it would indeed be fitting as the entire jury felt nothing but contempt. All the jury members were hauled off into custody and a mis-trial was declared.

This blasted blog has turned into one big rant. This HAS TO CHANGE. Need to think different! However, this whole caching nightmare is driving me to total and utter distraction. Safari is as pathetic as IE as far as the Cache is concerned. Just deleted
/Users/beanz/Library/Caches/Safari … created a text file called Safari – sans three character extension so that Safari can’t create a new folder for its cache – NOTHING!!!! Still get the same ol shit.

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGH!

Do NOT eat kabab rolls in the summer. Have spent all of Sunday in the loo and it’s NO FUN. Was zonked on Monday and crawled out of bed, feeling like a dog. Attempts to get to work at 8:45 a.m. were unsuccessful. Finally made it at 1:45 p.m. clutching my tummy and feeling extremely wobbly.

That aside, nothing else of note has occured. I guess I just feel too sorry for myself to consider anything else significant. How pathetic. Went to the Youth Initiative for Peace closing ceremony on Saturday night and wept consistently for 2 hours. I was so impressed with my little sister; in fact I was WoWed. Probably the closest I will ever come to feeling like a proud parent. She was so self-assured, confident, and real. I feel shitty that the last few years, I have been working 24/7 and missed so many opportunities to get to know her. Now she’s off to college and everything will change, which is great actually. I hope we get really close over e-mail and IM. She also wrote me an amazingly long letter for my birthday which I need/want to respond to. The YiPpIeS are a really special bunch of people – keep the faith!

Sufis confuse the living daylights out of me. Riddled in complexity, arcana, and mystical mumbo-jumbo … I don’t know what to make of them. Don’t HAVE to make anything of them but still, it helps to be able to grasp concepts, at least in theory.

Got interested in qavvali primarily because of the intensity of the music. A deeper fascination led to a superficial study of sufism, never could get very far because logic prevails and there’s just that much one can put down to you know what.